play sessions with each other.
‘Is your puppy ill?’ asked a little girl who was there with her family training their Cairn Terrier pup. ‘Why can’t she come and play with the other puppies?’
Amber’s owner looked at me with tears in her eyes. ‘None of the other puppies are reacting like this,’ she whispered. ‘I hadn’t realised how painfully shy she is.’
It was a turning point. Very gently, very gradually, Amber’s owner tentatively allowed her puppy to explore the house, and then the garden. She practically had to sit on her hands not to dash over and save the puppy from clambering down her six-inch-high rockery. She took her out in the car, let friends touch her and hold her – and even on one occasion left her overnight with a friend (although she did admit to calling almost every hour). Amber’s transformation had begun. The following week when she returned to the puppy class, Amber sat on the floor – although admittedly under her owner’s chair. She managed a sneaky sniff of another pup’s tail as it walked past and even ate a treat given to her by the little girl with the Cairn Terrier.
By week three of the course, Amber could practise ‘sits’ and ‘downs’ with the rest of the class. She couldn’t yet cope with playing or walking on the lead in the middle of the room, but she wagged her tail and looked more relaxed than I could have hoped for. By week five, she was offering play bows to the Cairn Terrier and had made a friend in a Bichon Frise puppy who was also a little shy. Everyone could see her progress now.
On the final night of the puppy course, Amber’s owner arrived with her pup on a new pink collar and lead. She walked into the room with confidence, sat down and watched as her puppy was happy to be petted by the little girl and a friend who had come to watch the puppy ‘graduation’ ceremony, in which I say a few words about how each puppy has developed during the six-week course and comment on their achievements. When it was Amber’s turn, I hardly needed to remind the class how much more confident Amber had become. They burst into a spontaneous round of applause in their genuine desire to congratulate her owner for all her efforts. They too could see that a crisis had been averted.
Packing up that evening, I was surprised to hear a voice behind me. Amber’s owner held out a brown paper bag.
‘I just wanted to give you something,’ she said. ‘You know, for the teacher, from Amber and me.’
I opened the bag. It contained a round and shiny apple. It was undoubtedly the best I’ve ever eaten.
TOP TIPS FOR ‘STRESS IMMUNISING’ AND SOCIALISING PUPPIES
» Start young. Even if your puppy has not yet completed all his vaccinations, you can carry him out and about to meet the world. The first critical window of opportunity for puppies to learn to cope with everyday life is before twelve weeks; after this, every day becomes potentially more difficult.
» Try not to wrap your puppy in cotton wool. He or she needs to learn how to cope with life. The balance between protection and exposure is an important one.
» Dogs need to be exposed repeatedly to all the sights, sounds, touches, smells and even tastes of their environment. Treat your puppy as if he is going to be a guide dog by taking him out and about as much as possible.
» Be brave enough to leave your puppy home alone for short periods.
» Find a good puppy class and enrol your dog as soon as they allow. The class should be specifically for pups of eighteen weeks and under, and should offer a combination of carefully controlled socialisation with other puppies and kind, gentle training.
» Even very young puppies can sometimes show problem behaviours. Don’t be fooled into thinking that he or she will grow out of it. Seek help early if you need it.
» Puppies and children are a wonderful, if sometimes wild, combination. Make sure that both have ‘calm down’ periods and that your puppy has somewhere he can go and rest undisturbed. Never leave your puppy unsupervised with children.
» Pups of eight weeks old can learn basic manners and training, such as ‘sit’, ‘down’, ‘come when called’ and multitudes of simple tricks such as ‘spin’, ‘rollover’ and ‘give a paw’. Learning is easy and fun when you are young.
» Puppies often go through a ‘fear period’, characterised by being confident one day and then being scared of something commonplace the next. Don’t reinforce the fear by giving attention; instead, pretend nothing has happened, wait until your pup recovers, then reward him for being brave the next time he encounters the same thing.
» Introduce your puppy to good-natured adult dogs as soon as you can. A ‘telling off’ from an older dog may be perfectly appropriate if your pup is too bumptious. This is distinguishable from aggression as it is all noise and bluster with no risk of damage. Don’t panic if it happens, as it’s likely to do you a favour.
» Two puppies from the same litter need to be walked, trained and socialised separately if they are to develop as individuals in their own right, and not many owners have the time or dedication needed for this. Pups that are over-dependent on each other or an older dog in the same household run the risk of lacking real-world experience and may have problems later.
Amber’s story is not uncommon. Her initial inability to cope with life outside a very small, protected world was caused by a complete lack of experience in those precious, formative weeks. This gives clues as to how pups should be raised once they are in a new home, but also what should happen while they are still with their breeder, their litter mates and their mum. Pups need a balance of protection and stimulation, of security and gentle exposure. Such a tightrope cannot be carefully negotiated if the pup is over-protected, shielded from everyone and everything.
For those that are born in a barn, surrounded by the barking of other dogs, with only the warmth of a heat lamp and the feel of shredded newspaper for stimulation, the outcome is strangely similar. Sadly, puppy farms are still common in the UK, with enough prospective owners willing to take on dogs that have been bred and raised in social deprivation, despite all the problems that we know this can cause.
A pup’s early experience can make or break its chances of becoming a family member. Of course, it’s hard to turn down the kids’ pleas and say no to a pup, even if you know it hasn’t been reared in the right way. Sometimes it is precisely because you know that the conditions are poor that you want to ‘rescue’ the pup and offer it a home. Dogs have a way of getting into our hearts like no other animal. They compel us to take them, to care for them and to spend inordinate amounts of time and money on them. All those songs are right: love makes us crazy – and it can make our dogs a little bit daft too.
Case history: Sam, the besotted Springer Spaniel
Going out to work if you keep dogs has always been controversial. Clearly, it’s not feasible to keep a dog if you are out for eight or ten hours a day. Dogs are social animals, and even if they are given food, water and shelter, their emotional welfare demands that they have exercise, company and stimulation during the day. However, it’s an ironic fact that in order to keep pets, most of us have to go out to work to be able to buy their food, pay their vet bills and buy them all the many beds, treats and little extras that make them (and us) happy.
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